Vauxhall MD James Taylor Welcomes Government Funding Boost for Kerbside Charging

Vauxhall’s Managing Director, James Taylor, has praised the government’s announcement of additional funding for kerbside charging points, calling it a “welcome boost” to the UK’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network.

In a statement, Taylor said that support for kerbside charging is critical to ensuring that “nobody is left behind on the UK’s electrification journey,” with millions of drivers without access to driveways reliant on an effective public charging network.

Vauxhall is working closely with leading charge point operators, such as Connected Kerb, through its Electric Streets of Britain initiative, which was introduced to help councils across the UK with the acceleration of public charge point rollout. Vauxhall invites drivers to register their on-street charging needs on one national portal and then that data is passed to councils for them to know where residents actually want to see them installed in their area. So far over 12,000 streets across the country have been logged as needing on-street charging through electricstreets.co.uk

“2024 saw a 21% growth in electric car uptake1,” Taylor said, “and whilst the number of overall public charge points is increasing substantially – some 38% up last year – the vast majority of the UK’s on-street residential chargers are currently located in the capital2.”

“Today’s announcement from the Chancellor that the Government will provide extra funding for kerbside chargepoints is a welcome boost to the UK’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network at a pivotal time,” Taylor continued. “We need to ensure that these new on-street chargers, which are key to enabling those without a driveway to charge their EV, get installed in the right towns and streets where they will get used – our Electric Streets campaign sets out precisely to help with that.”